Hundreds of Wrecks, Power Outages as City Socked by Ice Storm

posted by Jim Forsyth
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2 years ago

The wait for a wrecker to pull you car out of an accident was more than three hours this morning at the height of the worst ice storm to hit this area since 2011, 1200 WOAI news reports.

At one point about 7:30, San Antonio Police were on the scene of more than 200 accidents, and hundreds more accidents occurred since the icing began shortly after midnight this morning.

In a couple of incidents, dozens of motorists were stuck by an accident in front of them on the highway and were unable to move.

TxDOT sprayed deicing formula onto roads, and spread a fine gravel known as 'chat rock,' to help with traction on bridges.

But even though all schools and many businesses and government agencies closed or opened later in the morning, police had their hands full with wrecks all over the city.

A ten vehicle pile up on I-35 and Weidner this morning injured several people, and there were several multiple vehicle accidents around the city during the ice storm. Some police officers reported running out of flares to warn oncoming motorists of accidents.

It is the worst ice storm to hit the region since February of 2011, but, unlike that situation, The Electric Reliability Council of Texas said it didn't need to resort to rolling blackouts due to a lack of electric capacity. Officials said the capacity was sufficient this time.

CPS Energy dealt with thousands of power outages, mainly caused by ice snapping power lines. There were also issues with cars slamming into power poles.

San Antonio International cancelled more than a dozen outbound flights due to icing conditions, and a handful of inbound flights had to be cancelled, mainly from Houston, which also suffered from ice issues.